[mythtv-users] Just a bit more juice Re: VDPAU support on 0.21-fixes

Brad Templeton brad+myth at templetons.com
Wed Jan 28 09:21:46 UTC 2009


On Tue, Jan 27, 2009 at 08:54:37PM -0800, Gregg wrote:
> You may not need a new card.  I am running a p4 3.0 with 1gig of ram
> with an nvidia 5200.  I have overclocked the cpu a bit to 3.2 and it
> can play h264 vids up to 720p fine.  When I get into the 1080p
> resolution it chokes.  So if 720p is satisfactory for a 46 in screen
> you could be good to go.

Yes, they tend to be the 1080 line.  I could downres them, but that's  shame.
I could even transcode them up to mpeg2 which they probably came
from, which needs less CPU to decode.   I don't know if I am
so close to the wire as a little overclocking would help but
I could try.

Or, I can watch them on one of my core 2 duo machines which play
them no problems, but of course they are not at the TV.

There are some mobos out now that come with an geforce 9300 right
on the mobo.  Presumably that has the usual issues with memory
bandwidth being sucked but they might be nice boards for SFF
systems.

Note my current SFF (Aopen Xcube) does not fit any micro atx
motherboards.

And if I went to a new motherboard (with associated new ram
and new case etc.) I would have a core 2 duo of course, and thus
no longer have CPU worries.

It seems that VDPAU comes at just the wrong point.  Because
you can't get it in AGP, the only way to get it is on a
motherboard that takes modern CPUs which already have the
power to play the video.   Though from what I have heard, when
VDPAU support is more stable we might see smoother, nicer
playback, perhaps without system-load caused stutters.   

You CPU will have less load, but your GPU will have more load,
so whether it will reduce your power and heat budget I don't
know.  I would hope so, with the custom hardware doing things.

My first HDTV actually had a 1394 port on it, you could send
mpeg2 to it over firewire.   This is not so common any more,
and presents problems with OSD overlay, but that would allow
a frontend to send mpeg2s with minimal cpu and gpu.  Newer
generation TVs now have ethernet and you can send video to
them, so that may be the way of the future -- but it's not
in my TV from last year.


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